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A Blog Squad Special - How to Map your Blog

We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.

This week we are doing 'How To' specials with each of us taking a topic and writing our own guide. Amy will be talking about How to Find and Design Images for your Blog and Di will be sharing ways To make your Content Pop, which include ways to break up large sections of text, the right way to use blockquotes, and lots of info about subheadings, content boxes, and using images effectively.

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First of all, I’m sorry that the title sounds pretty bizarre. I honestly didn’t know how to sum up all that I’m going to be talking about in the title which is ‘how to make your blog easily navigable, what information to provide authors, publishers and readers, and how to go about with creating the various pages of your blog’.

This has been a really challenging post for me to write. Let me tell you guys right away that the things I’m going to be talking about are not things you NEED to do/have on your blog. They’re just things I learnt in my experience that I feel work great for me as a book blogger.

So let’s get started!

1. Decide what pages your blog should have

If you’re looking at me like…

Let me break it down for you!

ABOUT ME- This I believe is a page every blog should have, regardless of what you’re blogging about (Unless you wanna be an anonymous blogger?)

What goes in here? - Tell your readers a bit about yourself. In my “About me and the blog” page I tell people who what I am (Don’t tell me you thought I was actually human!), what I love and what readers can find on my blog!

Just ask yourself, “What are the things I want to know about the person behind the blog I love?”. I absolutely LOVE reading “About Me” pages. I mean, isn’t it just great to find out that you love the same books as someone else or have similar hobbies? “About” pages are a great way of interacting with the blogosphere. And no you needn’t write huge paragraphs and essays! Go ahead and make it short and sweet. I believe a list form like I have in my “About Me” page works pretty great!

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CONTACT ME- This is definitely not a necessity. If you don’t want your readers to contact you anywhere outside of your blog, you can totally do away with the “Contact me” page. But if you’re like me and want your readers to DM you on twitter and tag you on Instagram or if you want writers and publishers to reach out to you and interact with you ; let them know where to find you!

What goes in here? - It’s upto you which of your internet nooks you want people to visit and which ones are just for you to chill without disturbance. For instance, in my “Contact” page, while I have links to my Twitter, Instagram and Goodreads, I’ve not mentioned my email ID. I have a Google form for authors/publishers to request a review instead (More on that later).

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REVIEW ARCHIVE - Having a book blog means most of your readers come to your blog to look for reviews. Having an organized review archive makes it easier for them to find reviews they’re looking for.

What goes in here? - An organized list of links to your reviews. “Organized” is the key word here. If you’re just going to list out all the links without any kind of order, there is no point in having an archive. My Review Archive page has a list of all my reviews arranged in the alphabetical order of the authors’ last names. You could also organize them by genre and within each genre, organize them alphabetically.

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REQUEST A REVIEW- Many bloggers give out their email on the contact page so authors/publishers can approach them. But I’m a little personal about me email so I have a “Request a Review” page where I provide the link to a detailed Review Request form.

What goes in here? - In my Request a Review page, I specify what genres I accept for review, on which platforms I publish the review, and my review process. I find that this helps authors and publishers get an idea of what to expect from me. Also having them request a review through my google form rather than via email helps me keep it all organized!

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OTHER- It’s your blog! Go ahead and add some other fun pages too if you want! I have a Review Queue page where I list out the next 10-12 books I’ll be reviewing… It’s a tentative list but my regular readers can check out the queue to have an idea of what they can expect to see soon!

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2. Make sure your visitors can find the pages

You DO NOT want your visitors looking like that!

Let people see the pages of your blog right on top of the blog or at least on top of your sidebar.

Having to search for stuff = frustration = losing interest

You don’t want that to happen! This is what I mean by ‘easily navigable’. What’s the point in writing a wonderful “About me” or having a detailed “Review Request” page if your readers and authors/publishers can’t find where the pages are?!

3. Know what information people are looking for

It’s upto you what information you provide on your blog but now I’m just going to highlight what information people look for in a book review blog.

What your readers look for

Fellow book bloggers and readers who like your reviews look for other ways of interacting with you ; ie; SOCIAL MEDIA. If you don’t want to share your social media links that’s fine but if you’d love to interact with like minded people around the world wide web, make sure your links can be found in your blog.

What authors and publishers look for

- Number of followers

Authors and publishers are trying to get exposure for their book so like it or not, they’re going to be looking at your follower count. Make sure whatever gadget/widget you use on your blog that enables people to follow you also shows how many followers you have.

- Links to your social media

Again, they’re looking for exposure. They’d find it helpful to know on what platforms you can cross post the review on or promote their books. I know I said it’s up to you whether you want to share you social media links or not, but from my experience as book reviewer and blogger, I find that authors prefer to give out review copies to those who can share it on more number of platforms.

- What genres you read and review

It just not just help them but also you! Let’s say you don’t review non fiction but you haven’t mentioned this anywhere on your blog. So when an author does request a review for their non fiction work you have to go through the awkward process of refusing to do so. So make it easier for you and them and state the genres you read and review

4. Use Internal links!

Internal links are basically links in your posts and pages that lead to other posts and pages on your blog.Basically #shamelessselfpromotion . (I’ve been doing that throughout this post and I’m not even ashamed)

BUT this internal linking is more than just self promotion. It’s extremely helpful to those going through your blog. You’re giving your readers information via links without info dumping on your posts and that’s great!

Hope you guys found my “How to” post helpful!

What about you? Do you guys have tips for making your blog reader friendly? What pages do you have in your blog?Tell me in the comments!